One of the strong trends in personal care products is toward natural (100% carbon renewable) and mild formulations. This trend is especially evident in shampoos, body washes, liquid hand soaps, foaming facial cleansers and shower gels. Currently, alkyl polyglycosides and sodium lauryl sulfate dominate the naturally derived surfactant market. Alkyl polyglycosides suffer from their cost, lack of viscosity build, low foaming, and dark color, while sodium lauryl sulfate has negative connotations regarding its irritancy. Acyl glutamates make up the remaining field of natural surfactants and are often extravagantly priced which makes them cost prohibitive for use as primary or secondary surfactants.
In the area of personal care, there is a desire for surfactants that are mild, salt-free, sulfate-free and 100% active. Other desirable attributes include being in liquid form at room temperature, having a non-nitrogen containing structure, an ability to formulate products using a cold process, and an ability to perform as good as or better than existing surfactants. For household, industrial and institutional cleaning products, both surfactants and solvents are important ingredients. Desirable attributes for such products include the ability to emulsify, suspend or penetrate greasy or oily soils and suspend or disperse particulates, in order to clean surfaces; and then prevent the soils, grease, or particulates from re-depositing on the newly cleaned surfaces. For example, an effective laundry detergent product should remove dirt from clothes and then keep the dirt in solution so that it is removed with the wash water instead of re-depositing on the washed clothes.
It is also desirable to have the ability to control the foaming of different household, industrial and institutional products depending on the desired end-use applications. For example, a liquid manual dish washing detergent preferably has the ability to foam in the presence of soil that is being removed from dishware. Yet, for a laundry detergent or automated dish washing detergent for use in a high efficiency washing machine, low foam is desired to achieve the best cleaning and to avoid excess foaming to allow machine proper operation. Other desirable properties of such consumer products include the ability to clarify the formulation and to improve stability. For hard surface cleaners, it is desirable to have the ability to wet various surface types and couple or suspend soils to leave the surface free from residue in the form of streaking and/or filming.